To expect the toilet in the park to be open?

I am perfectly well aware that cottaging exists, thank you. Ridiculous, though that OP immediately assumes that is a reason for closure

Been gorgeous sunshine all long weekend here.

Our "big" park doesn't have any toilets at all anywhere nearby.

As @LlynTegid pointed out:-

Not just vandalism, but drug taking and in the case of the men's toilets, possibly cottaging

You waved away facts as being homophobic. So I think you are being naive as to what some men use public toilets for.

Hope that helps.

It's a literal piss take. They expect people to hold it in for several hours? It will put people off going. The council expect the burden to fall on nearby cafes and food businesses who are obliged to have facilities. Then they refuse people as they get messy and not enough staff etc. people leave mean reviews about local businesses as they were refused toilets etc. Plus people can get prosecuted for flashing just by going in a shrubbery out of desperation.
They really need to accept that everyone needs the bathroom and a public place like a park needs facilities. Even shed type cabins or god forbid, portaloos is better than nothing. But that would cost more than just keeping the ones they have maintained.

Oh the Daily Mail. No media bias there then. Particularly as it is a LD-run council and we all know the politics of the paper. Plus what they always fail to singularly mention is how developments are in respond to community consultation, they aren’t dreamt out of thin air.

You seem to think you’re disproving my comment? You’re not. If they are only willing to pay a certain wage and people won’t work for that wage then it’s still a resource issue.

Councils can't afford toilets but - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13375983/Fury-cash-strapped-council-spends-5-3million-upgrading-cycle-lanes-one-widest-safest-roads-seaside-town.html

Read it and weep!!

People like to say: the council could do it if they wanted to/council are incompetent/council spend x amount on shit stuff.

Become a councillor then, see how it works on the inside, the idea that these are all incompetents only looking out for themselves is such bigotry. Imagine how employed council workers feel and who regularly get abuse on social media for stuff that is not only beyond their control and centrally determined, but who also go into work every day to do their best and get called shit online because their bins haven’t been collected.

If you know better, then you go and set the budgets. I’m not saying the system is perfect, but can you do better? I hate First Past The Post, so I campaign for a more representative system by being a member of Electoral Reform. So I complain but I am doing something.

Also, before anyone asks, I am not a councillor. I also do not work for the public sector.

We're in a town of 12,000 people and have 5 sets of proper public toilets, plus 4 supermarkets with toilets!
I appreciate how unusually well served we are.
I won't visit somewhere if I know there isn't a toilet.

They should be open, of course.
We went to a small town and found its toilet closed (during working hours).
A sign on the door pointed people to the library which has a toilet, but the library is only open about 3 half days a week and was a 10 minute walk away.
DH ended up going for a wee in the Coop carpark and I dont blame him 🤷🏼‍♀️

I have a stoma so really need toilets to be open.

Our local park has never had any toilets but there's another well used park nearby where the toilets have been closed since last year. You have to pay a minimum of £2 to park at said park between 7.30am and 10pm, 7 days a week but presumably that isn't sufficient to maintain toilets

Naive? Please explain what you mean in this context.

It's frustrating, I still have to carry a potty for my dc even though she's been trained for a year, because you just never know if a loo is available.

I'm lucky as my nearest parks are big and quite touristy, so they have bigger budgets from hosting high profile events and their toilets are always open. But we like to explore other parks across the city to keep things interesting and many of the council-run ones are very run down.

I’ve never known a park to have a public toilet. Not where I live. Some cafes have stickers in the window saying the toilets are open to the public - it’s part of a scheme.

Lack of willingness to pay bank holiday rates to the cleaners more like.

@VestibuleVirgin Come on, don't be so naiive.

Omg! Here isxa conclusion, please feel free to jump to it.
Disgustingly homophobic

Because the food and drink place may not be run by the council, so they have no obligation to provide lavatories.
Have you been living on Mars recently? I as because most people know council funding has been slashed to buggery, and if it's a toss-up between a carer for a child with complex needs and a public lav, well I know which i would choose if I were in charge of council (and council tax payer's) money

It's not that simple. Often town centre refurbishments etc are funded by grants or by investment from construction projects. It can't be used to fund social care of education or libraries or toilets. My local authority is nearly bankrupt, have had to make millions of pounds of cuts year on year because of the withdrawal of funding from central govenrnment and are now cutting right back to statutory minimums only. That's large scale redundancies as well as cuts to the few remaining public services. Unless you have a really wealthy population that doesn't have many kids, disabled people or elderly, your local authority will be struggling.

Ours were closed today as well. Council money is outrageously mismanaged - they have enough, they just don’t put it where it should be.

I would because it's a case of priorities. Many councils DO keep them open and maintained.

Also, they have health and inclusion policies but seem to ignore them (see also their attitude to libraries) unless it suits them.

Also waste disposal. They'd love to stop having to deal with waste, even though it's the one tangible thing we all get for our council tax (yes I know there are others, like street lights).

People want more toilets, better social care, more regular bin collections, pot holes fixing (and so on and so forth) but don't want to pay increased council tax to fund it

Many people are happy to pay increased taxes if it gets spent in the right places. A council claims it has no money to keep loos open but will somehow find the funds to pedestrianise a street that nobody wants them to do.

... the fact that everyone on this thread is just shrugging their shoulders makes it worse somehow

Especially when they swallow wholesale the narrative that the councils "can't afford it"

To take one of countless examples, given what the east midlands are spending on awarding themselves yet another mayor for a "unitary authority" - for which read a another layer of pointless bureaucracy - I'd say they can afford it perfectly well, but of course toilets don't have the same appeal as a vanity project

I wouldn't mind, but they're not even capable of running what they've got; to hand them more fills many of us in the rea with horror

The number of public toilets closing in recent years, especially when the buildings themselves are still standing but locked up, is so depressing and the fact that everyone on this thread is just shrugging their shoulders makes it worse somehow.

One comes to expect the dainty brigade on MN who will take the chance to proclaim that they never used them anyway because, eurgh, toilets, disgusting but it seems like everyone accepts this as a fact of life and we all view the public loos of the past as some kind of luxury. They weren't!

Sun all weekend in Manchester suburbs